


Painted Scales

by silver_wolf1249



Category: One Piece
Genre: Based on Shimada Dragons from Overwatch, Established Relationship, Gen, I left it vague because I couldn't come to a proper decision, M/M, Noodle Dragons, Platonic Relationships, Portgas D. Ace Lives, Pre-Slash, Shirohige | Whitebeard | Edward Newgate Lives, Spirits, Tattoo Dragon AU, You get to decide what kind of relationship Marco and Ace have
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29630370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_wolf1249/pseuds/silver_wolf1249
Summary: A tattoo of a pair of dragons coil around Ace's left leg, incredibly detailed and lifelike. Sometimes, in the right light, they look almost...too lifelike. But that's silly, isn't it? After all, tattoos are just ink on skin, there's no way they could be alive....right?
Relationships: Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco & Portgas D. Ace, Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco/Portgas D. Ace, Portgas D. Ace & Whitebeard Pirates, if you squint?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	Painted Scales

**Author's Note:**

> So I couldn't make up my mind whether this was going to be a slash fic or not, and decided to leave it vague for y'all to decide. Enjoy!

When their new brother had come out shirtless to show off the new tattoo spanning his back, it wasn’t the only shock the Whitebeard crew received that day. Ace, who normally wore a pair of baggy pants whose ends reached just below the tops of his combat boots, was now wearing a pair of black shorts that held multiple pockets. 

The change in clothing style, however, wasn’t what they were surprised by. It was the eye catching bursts of color that stained his left leg. A pair of dragons entwined together coiled several times around Ace’s lower leg as their heads raised high upon his knee. One of the dragons, splendid in it’s green and blue scales the shades of the ocean they sailed upon, seemed slightly larger than the other, the single eye peeking out a stunning gold. Fierce reds and muted greys colored the other, like smoking embers, it’s only visible eye matching the first.

Chatter on the deck died down as everyone turned to the brunette, who looked slightly uncomfortable with all the attention. Waving awkwardly, Ace stepped forward towards Whitebeard, “Oyaji.” he stated, a sense of unsureness coating his form.

Within a heartbeat, the noise turned into a deafening volume as everyone began to rush the man. “Damn, Ace!” Thatch exclaimed, throwing an arm over the fire logia, “Those sure are some tats you have! You gotta tell us how you got that dragon one sometime. Welcome to the family little brother!”

And as the other Whitebeards began to give their hugs and back slaps to congratulate their newest member, Marco stayed back, observing. He planned on welcoming Ace later on when the hubbub died down and the guy could get some breathing room. From his perch near Whitebeard’s chair, he heard his father let loose a loud chuckle of joy, and let a smile curl onto his lips. His gaze soon turned towards the dragons admiringly, the tattoo was truly a work of art after all.

Slowly, however, the blonde became slightly unnerved by the artwork. The dragons seemed a little too lifelike, the detailed golden eyes looking much too observative. Albeit quite unnoticeable, he could swear the tattoo wriggled slightly in place on Ace’s skin. It even seemed as if the larger dragon seemed to curl around the smaller just a bit tighter, in a protective but gentle manner. But that was ridiculous, it was just a tattoo.

Marco shut his eyes and shook his head, and the signs of life he had noticed from before disappeared once he opened them again. Sighing, he told his father that he was going to his room for a bit. He obviously needed a nap if he seriously considered tattoos being alive, after all.

* * *

“Ace, yoi?” Marco’s voice questioned, wavering a little as he wondered if all the stress and exhaustion finally got to him, “Are those-?”

“I can explain!” the brunette exclaimed quickly, hands waving about wildly in panic, “I swear!”

“That would be nice.” the blonde said, still feeling a bit dazed.

In front of him, two organisms floated in front of him, slightly translucent beneath the sun’s rays coming in from the porthole in Ace’s room. Two organisms, Marco idly noted, that looked exactly like miniature versions of the dragons that made up Ace’s tattoo. He almost regretted entering the brunette’s room without knocking first, the hand holding time sensitive documents nearly dropping the papers in his surprise. His free hand reached out towards the organisms, to doubly make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. The ocean hued dragon brushed softly against his palm, and he flinched back at the feel of cool smooth scales. Yup, definitely real.

“Okay, so you remember when I told you about my mother, right?” the newly dubbed Second Division Commander asked quickly, still looking slightly panicked.

“Yes?” Marco spoke, wondering to himself how that detail related to the current situation, “Portgas D. Rouge, correct? The woman who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure your birth, of which I’ll always be thankful for, yoi.”

A small blush coated the others cheeks as he nodded in agreement, “Yes. Well, you see, my mother had a, err, special ability that I never mentioned.”

“So,” the First Commander commented as calmly as he could manage, his hand outstretched once more, “what you’re trying to say is that you inherited this... _ ability _ , from your mother, yoi?”

This time, the other dragon drew closer, its red and grey snout lightly knocking into the blonde’s fingers. It was indeed what the blond would call a “boop”, and Marco’s heart melted just a little bit at the adorableness of the action. He turned to see the new Second Commander rapidly nodding his confirmation.

“Yeah, I don’t know much about the ability to be honest.” the flame logia continued, skipping over the reason they both well knew why that was so, “All I know is that when I was ten, these guys suddenly appeared on my skin after I got really sick for two days. When I woke up I started feeling emotions that didn’t feel like my own and thought I was going crazy.”

Ace let out a nostalgic chuckle, “Of course, when they popped out of my skin I thought I was going crazier until my brother asked me why there were two snakes floating next to me. I spent the next couple of weeks trying to figure out what they could do and what exactly was going on. It wasn’t until when my shitty gramps came to visit that he told me that my mother must have passed it down to me. I also found out that these guys were dragon spirits or something, not like I ever really figured out what that really meant sadly.”

Nodding towards the dragon that swirled above them in blues and greens, Ace casually admitted, “Apparently that's what my mother’s spirit looked like, according to the old geezer. He theorized that she must have passed it on to me somehow to look after me. He doesn’t really know much either though, despite the research he did when I was younger to try to find out more.”

“Huh.” Marco murmured softly, still slightly captivated with the spirits floating about, “I see, yoi. I assume you want to keep this a secret?”

“Uh, yeah, if you don’t mind.” Ace awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, “I know since we’re family we shouldn’t keep secrets, but-”

“No, it’s fine Ace, yoi.” the blonde interrupted, “Even if we are all a family on the Moby, everyone has the right to their own personal secrets. You don’t have to share this with anyone if you don’t want to, and I apologize for barging into your room earlier, yoi. I should have knocked to protect your privacy. ”

Accepting the apology with a nervous nod, Ace eyed Marco a bit before his originally tense posture relaxed just a touch. “Well, since you’ve already found out, do you want me to introduce them to you? I named the red one Ash, and the other one my mother apparently named Thalassa. You shouldn’t be fooled by how docile Ash is right now. He can be a right asshole when he doesn’t get what he wants, and then he starts being bitey. Thalassa on the other hand is an absolute angel, she-”

Marco finds himself sitting on the edge of Ace’s bed, listening to the younger’s rambles about his dragons. They both progressively loosen up as time continues to pass by and he finds that he quite enjoys finding out more about their newest member. Even if he was learning about the weird dragon spirits living in his tattoo and all. 

Laughter involuntarily bubbles out of him as Ace describes one of Ash’s antics that had apparently caused a town to create a temple to worship him and the brunette shoots him a wide grin in response. As Ash ends up curled up in his lap and Thalassa loosely drapes herself around his shoulders, Marco wished that this moment could last forever.

* * *

“If you don’t remove that hand, Marco, Ash is going to bite you.” Ace hisses, not even turning behind to look the blonde in the eye.

“I’ll just heal, I don’t mind.” Marco responds airily, his grip firm on the fire logias bare shoulder, “Because what you’re planning to do is a collosally stupid idea and I should repeat it for you, yoi.”

“He killed Thatch!” the brunette ground out, and Ash appeared over the man’s head, jumping about in agitation, “I have to go after him! He was in my division, so he’s my responsibility!”

“Oyaji told us that we shouldn’t, yoi.” Marco replied, trying to remain calm, the hurt of his brother's death still stinging, “It’s too dangerous to go by yourself. Who knows how strong Teach even is? You don’t even know what you’re even facing, yoi!”

As silence reigned between them, Ash gnashed his teeth ferociously, growling lowly under his breath as he glared at the blonde. In the next moment, Thalassa appeared, looking upset, but much calmer compared to the other two. She hummed in a pleading tone towards both the smaller dragon and raging fire logia, before heading towards Marco to headbutt him gently.

The blonde reached out to pet the spirit with his free hand, fingers ruffling her long, soft mane and rubbing the scales between the dragon’s antlers carefully. He was glad at least one of the three seemed to see sense. “I’m still going, and you can’t stop me. I have to at least try to bring down Thatch’s killer, even if I die trying.” the Second Commander commented after a while, head hanging low, “It’s the least I can do for him.”

Sighing, Marco’s grip slowly let go, letting the hand rest at his side. “I can’t stop you if you’re this determined, yoi.” he says slowly, carefully, “But be careful, and make sure to check in every once in a while, with Oyaji at least if not with me. I don’t think I can handle another...just don’t die on me, ok, yoi?”

Finally, Ace turns around, a determined look in his eyes that gentle slightly upon the sight of the blonde behind him. “I’ll try my best.” he states, in the most cheer he could muster at the moment, “But I need to do this.”

And with that, he jumped off the side of the boat on his Striker, Ash floating down to join him. In comparison, Thalassa remains for a while more at Marco’s side, accepting the pets he gives her. Eventually however, she nudges his fingers aside and rubs her face a few times against his cheek, giving a small rumble in farewell before she joins her counterpart with the Ace.

Watching the young man with two floating, slightly glowing spirits by his side ride off into the night, Marco feels his exhaustion catch up to him. It’s bone deep, reaching into his soul, and as he heads towards his quarters, he only hopes that Ace will come back home safely.

* * *

Chaos is the best descriptor the past hours have been, Marco thinks to himself as he rushes back to the ships along with his brothers and allies. Dread pools in his gut as he turns away from his father, who is standing proudly as he is surrounded by marines. They have lost so much already, Marco doesn’t want to contemplate Oyaji among those losses. But he has always been a loyal son, and follows his captain’s last orders as he retreats to the ships.

But Ace, the stupid, loveable, impulsive fire logia, is finally free. They’ve managed to accomplish what they are here to do, and now they’re getting out of dodge. That is, they were, until Ace, and Marco feels the need to emphasize the stupid and impulsive parts of his description once more, gets baited by Akainu. Magma overpowers fire and the blonde can only kneel on the ground uselessly as the sea stone shackle around his wrist continues to drain him of his strength.

Then he watches on as the admiral changes targets and heads towards Strawhat, only feet away from the collapsed fire logia, and Marco sees Ace turn to hurry towards his little brother. The world slows down around him, horror building up within him as he realizes what’s about to occur, and what he is helpless to stop. ‘ _ No.’  _ his exhausted, but frantic mind screams, ‘ _ NO! It can’t end like this, it CAN’T!’ _

Just as the blonde sees Akainu’s magma covered fist head towards Ace’s unprotected back, the admiral is blocked by two very familiar semi-transparent forms wrapping around the fire logia and his brother. Ash and Thalassa glare down at the shocked magma man, somehow now hundreds of times larger than usual size.

Ace looks just as shocked as Marco feels, though only staring at the scales wrapped around him momentarily. He grips his brother’s head and tucks it into his chest protectively as he pulls the rest of Luffy’s body closer to him in a loose embrace. The dragons raise their heads, and a resounding roar shakes the battlefield. 

Distantly, Marco is aware that the roar must contain Conqueror’s Haki as marines begin to fall down. He’s quite grateful that unlike Strawhat’s raw haki, the dragon pairs’ haki were solely focused on the marines in front of them rather than impacting any of his fleeing brothers.

Now forced to his knees by the Conqueror’s Haki, Akainu stares up at the dragons, still looking shocked. Marco doesn’t waste any time as he cries out, “Bring them to the ship. Bring them to the ship, yoi!”

Thalassa turns to face him, and nods her understanding. Separating herself from Ash, she wraps her long body around the pair of brothers a few times to secure them. Then she hurtles towards the ship behind Marco, and the blonde turns to witness her depositing her two pieces of cargo gently onto the deck. Raising his voice once more, Marco screams out to the rest of his family, “Everyone get onto the ships, we’re retreating!”

And as he himself picks himself up to run towards the ocean, he is witness to a rush of blue and green over his head, in the direction of Oyaji. He can only pray that she will make it there in time, and finally reaches the ship. As he climbs onto the deck, he sees Ace and his brother being rushed to the infirmary and relaxes minutely knowing that at least they’ll be ok. Suddenly, he feels a rush of heat blow harshly on his back, and turns to see what happened.

It’s Ash, whose ember-like scales are now on actual fire, similar to Ace’s Devil Fruit abilities, and is attacking the admiral before him with wild abandon. The difference between Ace and his dragon was that Akainu’s magma seemed to have no effect on Ash, fists pounding uselessly on the dragon’s thick scales. 

In the distance, he spotted Thalassa wrapping Oyaji in her grasp, surrounded by knocked out marines from what he assumed was another blast of haki. Just like with Ace and Luffy, Thalassa rushed back to the ship and deposited Whitebeard as gently as she could. Men surrounded him as they practically lifted their father to lead him to the infirmary. Only felt more relief flooded through Marco as he felt the ship begin to move, all of his family already loaded on the various ships that were left unharmed from the battle.

As they began to sail away, Marco idly noticed that some considerate person had finally managed to pick his cuffs and remove them. His Devil Fruit abilities flow through him and healed all of his wounds instantaneously in flashes of blue and gold. All the while, he kept a close eye on the marines to make sure they wouldn’t try anymore funny business. But with Thalassa joining Ash to wreak havoc upon Marineford, and the marines pulling back rather than attempting to try and chase after them, he was pretty reassured that they would be safe. Still, it didn’t hurt to keep watch.

“Heh.” he heard a voice chuckle behind him, and turned slightly to see Ace standing behind him, a weak grin on his face.

The brunette looked a little worse for wear, covered nearly head to toe in bandages. Looking leaner, more gaunt than before indicated malnutrition from his time at Impel Down, but more importantly, he was alive. Marco was torn between hugging the fire logia as tightly as possible or punching him in the face with a haki coated fist. “Looks like we found out what the dragons can do, after all, yoi.” is what he settled for instead, and Ace laughed again, voice a little watery.

“Yeah, yeah I guess we did.” Ace responds, and Marco notices that the man’s face is starting to look very pale.

The brunette’s legs begin to shake, and the blonde is there to catch him before he starts to fall, gently laying him on the ground. “Thanks.” Ace says casually as if his feet hadn’t just collapsed from under him, “I’m pretty sure taking the dragons out to fight like this is really draining, I don’t think I can keep them out for much longer.”

“Then don’t, yoi.” Marco shoots back, concerned, “We’re nearly out of range for the most part, you can let go now. If anyone does come after us, well, I still have some left in me to destroy a marine ship or two, yoi.”

  
Tiredly, Ace smiles and nods, before passing out as some color steadily returns to his cheeks. The First Commander is pretty sure the dragons have been recalled now, and hands the brunette back to a nurse's waiting arms. Surveying the deck of exhausted but still spirited pirates, Marco overhears many of them chatting excitedly about the dragons that had literally swooped in to save them. ‘ _ We’ll be alright.’ _ he thinks to himself, taking another look about and smiling, pushing aside his grief for another time, ‘ _ Yeah, I think we’ll be fine.’ _

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Don't start a new work, don't start a new work  
> My brain: Ok but what if you wrote drabbles instead, just adjust one of those ones you had a chaptered idea for and turn it into a drabble.  
> Me: hmmm I like your style magic man!
> 
> 6 hrs later:  
> Me: *Stares at my work in betrayal* You were supposed to be a short drabble? You weren't supposed to get this long? How dare you??  
> My brain: I couldn't help myself! Also what if we made a drabble series about Ace called "Observation Diary of the Enigma Portgas D Ace by the Whitebeard Pirates"  
> Me: nononononon STOP.....damnit it sounds really interesting I'll at least hear it out, even if I prob won't write it.  
> My brain: *haha gets em every time* Glad you asked, so like you know how-
> 
> But yeah, like, I fell into the Overwatch fandom randomly a while back and recently I read a few "the D in their middle name means Dragon" OP fics and was like, huh D for dragon? Shimada Dragons? What if we combined the two? And then realized if I made all D's have spirit dragons I'd prob end up writing a lot more than just a short drabble (well a proper one shot now), and while I totally have ideas for that I didn't particularly feel like it, so I just made it that only Ace has spirit dragons in a bomb looking tattoo that came alive. 
> 
> By the way if you see any grammar, spelling, or logic inconsistencies feel free to tell me I wrote this in one go and only kind of edited it so it's pretty messy. Hope you all enjoyed and please leave a comment to tell me what you think!


End file.
